Ellipsis (plural ellipses; from Greek ἔλλειψις 'omission') in printing and writing refers to a mark or series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word or a phrase from the original text. Guillemets ( or after French) also called Angle quotes, are line segments pointed as if arrows ( « or ») sometimes forming a complementary A hyphen ( -) is a Punctuation mark It is used for both Words to join and to separate Syllables It is often confused with the dashes The question mark (? also known as an interrogation point, question point, query, or eroteme, is a punctuation mark that replaces Quotation marks or inverted commas (informally referred to as quotes and speech marks) are Punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech A semicolon (   ) is a conventional Punctuation mark with several usages The slash ( /) is a punctuation mark It is also called a virgule, diagonal, stroke, forward slash, oblique dash, The solidus ( ⁄) is a punctuation mark that is not found on standard keyboards Interword separation is the act and the effect of mutually separating the written representations of Words The early Semitic languages mdashwhich had no vowel In writing a space () is a blank area that is devoid of content which separates words letters numbers and punctuation An interpunct ( ·) is a small dot used for Interword separation in ancient Latin script, being perhaps the first consistent visual representation of word boundaries Typography is the art and techniques of arranging type, Type design, and modifying type Glyphs Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety An ampersand ( &) also commonly called an " 'and' sign," is a Logogram representing the conjunction "and" The typographic character @, the at sign, denotes a pan-lingual abbreviation of the word 'at' An asterisk ( *) (Latin asteriscum "little star" from Greek ἀστερίσκος) is a Typographical symbol or Glyph The backslash ( \) is a typographical mark ( Glyph) used chiefly in Computing. In Typography, a bullet is a typographical symbol or Glyph used to introduce Items in a list, like below also known as the point of a bullet Caret is the name for the symbol ^ in ASCII and some other Character sets Its Unicode code point is U+005E and its ASCII code in hexadecimal is 5E The currency sign ( ¤) is a character used to denote a currency when the symbol for a particular currency is unavailable In many national currencies, the cent is a monetary unit that equals 1/100 of the basic monetary unit The euro sign (€ is the Currency sign used for the Euro, the official currency of the European Union (EU See also Pound (currency.The pound sign (" £ " or " ₤ " is the symbol for the Pound sterling —the currency of the ¥￥ ₪The sheqel sign ( ₪) A dagger ( †, &dagger U+ 2020 is a typographical symbol or Glyph. The degree symbol (° Unicode: U+00B0 HTML: &deg is a typographical symbol or Glyph, that is used to represent degrees of arc (see The inverted question and exclamation marks are used to begin interrogative and exclamatory sentences respectively in written Spanish. The inverted question and exclamation marks are used to begin interrogative and exclamatory sentences respectively in written Spanish. In Logic and Mathematics, negation or not is an operation on Logical values for example the logical value of a Proposition Number sign is a name for the symbol #; it is the preferred Unicode name for the Code point associated with that Glyph. The Numero sign (U+2116 or Number sign is used in many languages to indicate ordinal numeration especially in names and titles for example instead of writing the long " The percent sign ( %) is the symbol used to indicate a Percentage (that the preceding number is divided by one hundred The pilcrow (¶ Unicode U+00B6 HTML entity &para also called the Paragraph sign or the alinea ( The prime symbol ( ′  double prime symbol ( &Prime  triple prime symbol ( ‴  etc The section sign (§ Unicode U+00A7 HTML entity &sect is a typographical character used mainly to refer to a particular section The tilde (~ (/ˈtɪldə/ is a Grapheme with several uses The name of the character comes from Spanish, from the Latin titulus Diaeresis or trema See also Diaeresis History Historically the diaeresis mark or trema is far older than the umlaut mark The underscore _ (also called understrike, underbar, low line, or low dash is a character that originally appeared on the Typewriter. Note "broken bar" and the glyph "¦" redirect here Typography is the art and techniques of arranging type, Type design, and modifying type Glyphs Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety For other uses of this term please refer to Asterism disambiguation page The symbol ☞ is a Punctuation mark called an index or fist. In a Mathematical proof, the therefore sign (∴ is a symbol that is sometimes placed before a Logical consequence, such as the conclusion of a The interrobang ( ‽, is a nonstandard English -language Punctuation mark intended to combine the functions of the Question mark (also "؟" redirects here For the Arabic question mark see Question mark. This page lists Japanese typographic symbols which are not included in Kana or Kanji. A sarcasm mark or sarcasm point identifies text as being Derogatory or ironic. The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage in the development of the Hellenic language family spanning the Archaic (c Printing is a process for reproducing text and image typically with ink on Paper using a printing press An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence (aposiopesis).

The most common form for an ellipsis consists of a row of three full stops (. . . , .  .  . or [. . . ]). Forms encountered less often are three asterisks (***), or one (—) or more (––) dashes.

The triple-dot punctuation mark is also called a suspension point, points of ellipsis, periods of ellipsis, or colloquially, dot-dot-dot.

In writing

The use of ellipses can either mislead or clarify, and the reader must rely on the good intentions of the writer who uses it. An example of this ambiguity is ‘She went to… school. ’ In this sentence, ‘…’ might represent the word ‘elementary’, or the word ‘no’. Omission of part of a quoted sentence without indication by an ellipsis (or bracketed text) (e. g. ‘She went to school. ’ as opposed to ‘She went to Broadmoor Elementary school. ’) is considered misleading. An ellipsis at the end of the sentence which ends with a period (or such a period followed by an ellipsis), appears, therefore, as four dots.

An ellipsis may also imply an unstated alternative indicated by context. For example, when Count Dracula says "I don't drink … wine", the implication is that he does drink something else, which in the context would be blood. In such usage the ellipsis is stronger than a mere dash, where for example "I don't drink — wine" might only indicate that the Count, not a native English speaker, was pausing to get the correct word without other implication.

Typographical rules

There are differences in typographical rules and conventions of using ellipses between languages.

In English

The style and use varies in the English language. The Chicago Manual of Style suggests the use of an ellipsis for any omitted word, phrase, line, or paragraph from within a quoted passage. The Chicago Manual of Style (abbreviated in writing as CMS or CMOS or verbally as Chicago) is a Style guide for American English There are two commonly used methods of using ellipses: one uses three dots for any omission, while the second makes a distinction between omissions within a sentence (using three dots: . . . ) and omissions between sentences (using a period and a space followed by three dots: .  .  .  ). An ellipsis at the end of a sentence with no sentence following should be followed by a period (for a total of four dots). The Modern Language Association (MLA) however, used to indicate that an ellipsis must include spaces before and after each dot in all uses. The Modern Language Association of America (usually referred to as simply Modern Language Association or MLA) is the principal Professional association If an ellipsis is meant to represent an omission, square brackets must surround the ellipsis to make it clear that there was no pause in the original quote: [ . Brackets are Punctuation marks used in pairs to set apart or interject text within other text . . ]. Currently, the MLA has removed the requirement of brackets in their style handbooks. However, the use of brackets is still correct as it clears confusion. ^[1]

According to Robert Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style, the details of typesetting ellipses depend on the character and size of the font being set and the typographer's preference. The Elements of Typographic Style is a book by Canadian Typographer, Poet and Translator Robert Bringhurst. Bringhurst writes that a full space between each dot is "another Victorian eccentricity. In most contexts, the Chicago ellipsis is much too wide" — he recommends using flush dots, or thin-spaced dots (up to one-fifth of an em), or the prefabricated ellipsis character (Unicode U+2026, Latin entity …). In writing a space () is a blank area that is devoid of content which separates words letters numbers and punctuation An em is a unit of measurement in the field of Typography, equal to the point size of the current Font. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's In the Markup languages SGML, HTML, XHTML and XML, a character entity reference is a reference to a particular kind of named Bringhurst suggests that normally an ellipsis should be spaced fore-and-aft to separate it from the text, but when it combines with other punctuation, the leading space disappears and the other punctuation follows. He provides the following examples:

In legal writing in the United States, Rule 5. 3 in the Bluebook citation guide governs the use of ellipses and requires a space before the first dot and between the two subsequent dots. The Bluebook A Uniform System of Citation, a Style guide, prescribes the most widely used Legal citation system in the United States. If an ellipsis ends the sentence, then there are three dots, each separated by a space, followed by the final punctuation.

In Polish

Main article: Ellipsis (Polish)

In Polish, an ellipsis (called wielokropek, which means multidot) is always composed of three dots without any spaces between. In Polish, an ellipsis (called pl ''wielokropek'' which means multidot) is always composed of three dots without any spaces between Polish ( język polski, polszczyzna) is the Official language of Poland. There is no space between the ellipsis and the preceding word, but there is always a space after the ellipsis, unless the following character is a closing bracket or quote mark, in which case the space is inserted after that character instead.

When the ellipsis is used for omitting a fragment of quotation, it is always surrounded with either square brackets or, more commonly, parentheses, with no space inside. An ellipsis without parentheses usually means a pause in speech. It can also mean a word said partially and interrupted and in that case can be directly followed by another punctuation mark without space: Ellipsis can be used at the end of a sentence, but it is always composed of three dots, never four, and the only difference is the capitalisation of the next word:

In Japanese

In writing, the ellipsis consists usually of three dots (one ellipsis character) or six dots (two ellipsis characters), … or ……; however, variations in the number of dots exist. In horizontally written text the dots are commonly vertically centred within the text height (between the baseline and the ascent line), as in the standard Japanese Windows fonts; in vertically written text the dots are always centred horizontally. In Typography and Penmanship, the baseline is the line upon which most letters "sit" and under which Descenders extend Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. As the Japanese word for dot is pronounced 'ten', the dots are colloquially referred to by the moniker 'ten-ten-ten' (てんてんてん) (akin to the English 'dot dot dot'). More officially, they are called n-dot leaders (n-ten rīda, n-ten rīdā), where n corresponds to the number of dots.

In Japanese manga, the ellipsis by itself represents speechlessness, or a "pregnant pause. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities ˈmɑŋgə is the Japanese word for Comics (sometimes called komikku コミック and print Cartoons In their modern form manga date from shortly Comic timing is use of rhythm and tempo to enhance Comedy and Humor. " Given the context, this could be anything from an admission of guilt or an expression of being dumbfounded as a result of something that another person has just said or done. As a device, the ten-ten-ten is intended to focus the reader on a character while allowing the character to not speak any dialogue. This conveys to the reader a focus of the narrative "camera" on the silent subject, implying an expectation of some motion or action. It is not unheard of to see inanimate objects "speaking" the ellipsis. ^[2]

In Chinese

In Chinese, the ellipsis is six dots (in two groups of three dots, occupying the same horizontal space as two characters). The dots are always centred within the baseline and the ascender when horizontal, but on the baseline are also accepted today; and centred horizontally when vertical.

In mathematical notation

An ellipsis is also often used in mathematics to mean “and so forth”. Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and In a list, between commas, or following a comma, a normal ellipsis is used, as in:

To indicate the omission of values in a repeated operation, an ellipsis raised to the center of the line is used between two operation symbols or following the last operation symbol, as in:

The latter formula means the sum of all natural numbers from 1 to 100. In Mathematics, a natural number (also called counting number) can mean either an element of the set (the positive Integers or an However, it is not a formally defined mathematical symbol. This is a listing of common symbols found within all branches of the science of Mathematics. These dots should never be used unless the pattern to be followed is clear.

Sometimes, it is appropriate to display the formula being used. The preceding example would become:

Another example is the set of zeros of the cosine function. This article is about the zeros of a function which should not be confused with the value at zero. The Mathematical concept of a function expresses dependence between two quantities one of which is given (the independent variable, argument of the function

The diagonal and vertical forms of the ellipsis are particularly useful for showing missing terms in matrices, such as the size-n identity matrix

In programming

In some programming languages (including Perl, Ruby, and Pascal), a shortened two-dot ellipsis is used to represent a range of values given two endpoints; for example, to iterate through a list of integers between 1 and 100 inclusive in Perl:

foreach (1. In Mathematics, a matrix (plural matrices) is a rectangular table of elements (or entries) which may be Numbers or more generally In Linear algebra, the identity matrix or unit matrix of size n is the n -by- n Square matrix with ones on the Main A programming language is an Artificial language that can be used to write programs which control the behavior of a machine particularly a Computer. NOTES FOR EDITORS "Perl" is not an acronym (read the "Name" section below Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general purpose Object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural Programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small The integers (from the Latin integer, literally "untouched" hence "whole" the word entire comes from the same origin but via French . 100)

Perl overloads the ". In Computer programming, operator overloading (less commonly known as operator Ad-hoc polymorphism) is a specific case of polymorphism in . " operator in scalar context as a stateful bistable Boolean test, roughly equivalent to "true while x but not yet y". Something that is bistable can be resting in two states In physics for an ensemble of particles the bistability comes from the fact that its free energy In Computer science, the Boolean datatype, sometimes called the logical datatype, is a Primitive datatype having one of two values [1] In Perl6, the 3-character ellipsis is also known as the "yadda yadda yadda" operator and, similarly to its linguistic meaning, serves as a "stand-in" for code to be inserted later. Perl 6 is a planned major revision to the Perl Programming language. Perl 6 is a planned major revision to the Perl Programming language. In addition, an actual Unicode ellipsis character is used to serve as a type of marker in a perl6 format string. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's [2]

In the C programming language, an ellipsis is used to represent a variable number of parameters to a function. tags please moot on the talk page first! --> In Computing, C is a general-purpose cross-platform block structured In Computer science, a subroutine ( function, method, procedure, or subprogram) is a portion of code within a larger For example:

void func(const char* str, . . . )

The above function in C could then be called with different types and numbers of parameters such as:

func("input string", 5, 10, 15);

and

func("input string", "another string", 0. 5);

As of version 1. 5, Java has adopted this "varargs" functionality. For example:

public int func(int num, String. . . strings)

Most programming languages other than Perl6 require the ellipsis to be written as a series of periods; a single (Unicode) ellipsis character cannot be used. Perl 6 is a planned major revision to the Perl Programming language.

In computing

In computing, several ellipsis characters have been codified. Computing is usually defined like the activity of using and developing Computer technology Computer hardware and software. For other uses see Character. In Computer and machine-based Telecommunications terminology a character is a unit of In Unicode, there are the following characters:

• For general use:
  • Horizontal ellipsis, …, at code point 2026 (HTML entity …)
  • Thai ellipsis, ฯ, at code point 0E2F
  • Laotian ellipsis, ຯ, at code point 0EAF
  • Mongolian ellipsis, ᠁, at code point 1801
• For use in mathematics:
  • Vertical ellipsis, ⋮, at code point 22EE
  • Midline horizontal ellipsis, ⋯, at code point 22EF
  • Up right diagonal ellipsis, ⋰, at code point 22F0
  • Down right diagonal ellipsis, ⋱, at code point 22F1

These code points, given here in hexadecimal, typically manifest in encoded form, either via a Unicode Transformation Format like UTF-8, or via an older character map ("legacy encoding"). In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's In SGML and its derived Markup languages HTML and XML, an entity is a named body of data associated with a document or the unnamed document Thai (th ภาษาไทย, transcription: phasa thai, transliteration:; pʰāːsǎːtʰāj is the national and Lao or Laotian (BGN/PCGN phasa lao IPA: pʰaːsaː laːw is a Tonal Language of the Tai-Kadai language family The Mongolian language (mn [[ImageMonggol kelesvg 17px]] Mongɣol kele, Cyrillic: Монгол хэл Mongol khel) is the best-known member of In Mathematics and Computer science, hexadecimal (also base -, hexa, or hex) is a Numeral system with a A character encoding consists of a code that pairs a sequence of characters from a given character set (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Code page In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's UTF-8 (8- Bit UCS / Unicode Transformation Format) is a variable-length Character encoding for Unicode. In computing a legacy encoding is a Character encoding that continues to be used despite being obsoleted by another encoding

In Chinese and sometimes in Japanese, ellipsis characters are done by entering two consecutive horizontal ellipsis (U+2026). is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities In vertical texts, the application should rotate the symbol accordingly.

Unicode recognizes a series of three period characters (period being code point 002E, hexadecimal) as being a valid equivalent to the horizontal ellipsis character.

The horizontal ellipsis character may be represented in HTML by the entity reference … (since HTML 4. HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant Markup language for Web pages It provides a means to describe the structure 0). Alternatively, in HTML, XML, and SGML, a numeric character reference such as … or … can be used. Don't change "Extensible" The Standard Generalized Markup Language ( ISO 88791986 SGML) is an ISO Standard Metalanguage in which one can define Markup languages A numeric character reference (NCR is a common markup construct used in SGML and other SGML-based markup languages such as HTML and XML.

The horizontal ellipsis character also appears in the following older character maps:

• in IBM/MS-DOS Code page 874, as byte 85 (hexadecimal)
• in Windows-1250 through Windows-1258, as byte 85 (hexadecimal)
• in Mac-Roman and Mac-CentEuro as byte C9 (hexadecimal)
• in Ventura International encoding as byte C1 (hexadecimal)

As with all characters, especially those outside of the ASCII range, the author, sender and receiver of an encoded ellipsis must be in agreement upon what bytes are being used to represent the character. A byte (pronounced "bite" baɪt is the basic unit of measurement of information storage in Computer science. Windows-1250 is a Code page used under Microsoft Windows to represent texts in Central European and Eastern European languages that use Latin Windows-1258 is a Codepage used in Microsoft Windows to represent Vietnamese texts Mac OS Roman is a Character encoding primarily used by Mac OS to represent text Macintosh Central European encoding is used in Apple Macintosh computers to represent texts in Central European and Southeastern European languages that American Standard Code for Information Interchange ( ASCII) Naive text processing software may improperly assume that a particular encoding is being used, resulting in mistranslation.

The following is an excerpt from the Chicago Style Q&A [3]:

Q. How do I insert an ellipsis in my manuscript? My computer keyboard can do that with a couple of keystrokes. Is this acceptable? Or should I type period + space for all three dots? Should these spaces be nonbreaking spaces?

A. For manuscripts, inserting an ellipsis character is a workable method, but it is not the preferred method. It is easy enough for a publisher to search for this unique character and replace it with the recommended three periods plus two nonbreaking spaces (. . . ). But in addition to this extra step, there is also the potential for character-mapping problems (the ellipsis could appear as some other character) across software platforms—an added inconvenience. Moreover, the numeric entity for an ellipsis is not formally defined for standard HTML (and may not work with older browsers). So type three spaced dots, like this . . . or, at the end of a grammatical sentence, like this. . . . If you can, add two nonbreaking spaces to keep the three dots—or the last three of four—from breaking across a line.

In a user interface, . The user interface (or Human Computer Interface) is the aggregate of means by which people&mdash the users '&mdash interact with the System . . after a command means that the user needs to enter extra information before the command can execute. It is also used to signify that an operation may take some time, as in "Please wait. . . ". In a GUI environment, clicking on a menu item with . . . after the name means another dialog box will open which requires more actions from the user. In Graphical user interfaces a dialog (or dialogue) box is a special window, used in user interfaces to display Information to the A typical example is the Run. . . in the Microsoft Windows Start menu and the List of Values field in Oracle ERP applications. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. For the keyboard button that activates the start menu see Windows key. Oracle Corporation ( specializes in developing and marketing Enterprise software products — particularly Database management systems In 2007 Oracle ranked Enterprise resource planning ( ERP) is the planning of how business resources (materials employees customers etc

In Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN. In Telecommunications and Computer networking, Abstract Syntax Notation One ( ASN 1), the ellipsis is used as extension marker to indicate the possibility of type extensions in the future revisions of a protocol specification. In a type constraint expression like A ::= INTEGER (0. . 127, . . . , 256. . 511) ellipsis is used to separate extension root from extension additions. In ASN1, extension root is a definition of a type in Version 1 of protocol specification Definition of type A in version 1 system of the form A ::= INTEGER (0. . 127, . . . ) and definition of type A in version 2 system of the form A ::= INTEGER (0. . 127, . . . , 256. . 511) constitute extension series of the same type A in different versions of the same specification. The ellipsis can also be used in compound type definitions to separate the set of fields belonging to the extension root from the set of fields constituting extension additions. Here is an example: B ::= SEQUENCE { a INTEGER, b INTEGER, . . . , c INTEGER }

Types in typography

In typography there are various types of ellipsis, which are displayed below using T_EX. Typography is the art and techniques of arranging type, Type design, and modifying type Glyphs Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety TeX (ˈtɛx as in Greek, often /ˈtɛk/ in English; written with a lowercase 'e' in imitation of the logo is a Typesetting system designed and mostly

lower ellipsis		\ldots
centred ellipsis		\cdots
diagonal ellipsis		\ddots
vertical ellipsis		\vdots

The therefore sign (∴) and because sign (∵) have the three dots in a triangle. In a Mathematical proof, the therefore sign (∴ is a symbol that is sometimes placed before a Logical consequence, such as the conclusion of a In a Mathematical proof, the therefore sign (∴ is a symbol that is sometimes placed before a Logical consequence, such as the conclusion of a

References

Further reading

• Bringhurst, Robert (2002). Robert Bringhurst (born October 16, 1946) is a Poet, Typographer and Author. The Elements of Typographic Style (version 2. The Elements of Typographic Style is a book by Canadian Typographer, Poet and Translator Robert Bringhurst. 5), pp 82–83. Vancouver: Hartley & Marks. ISBN 0-88179-133-4.
• William Morris (1980). William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896 was an English Architect, Furniture and Textile designer artist writer and socialist associated The Houghton Mifflin Canadian Dictionary of the English Language, page 424 (spacing of dots: . . . ). Markham, Ontario: Houghton Mifflin Canada. ISBN 0-395-29654-4.